A Guide To The German Film Festival In Singapore

Singapore has become a hotbed for film festivals and today we present to you one of Singapore’s oldest festivals – the 20th German Film Festival hosted by the Goethe Institute. The event organizers hope to offer viewers a deeper idea of what the film worlds of Germany, Austria and Switzerland look like.

Over the years, the festival has taken on an increasingly international tone. Whereas some genres of German cinema focus on the nation’s internal struggles of the past and present, there has also been a rise in external facing German cinema especially thanks to co-productions with directors and writers from other nations.

This year’s festival features more than 30 films that cover a diverse array of themes and different facets of both German and international culture. The three main screening partners are The Projector, the National Museum and the Vivocity and Plaza Singapura locations of Golden Village.

Courtesy of The Projector

The festival organizers have curated a retrospective entitled German Fantasy Film Through the Ages. Germany has long been one of the premier creators in this genre, look at the Brothers Grimm whose fantastic fairy tales have captivated readers for centuries. At the turn of the 20th century, the German film industry was dominated by The Weimar era which boasts classics such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. During the festival, attendees can see Destiny, a tale of lost love and sacrifice by Fritz Lang, set across Persia, Renaissance Venice and Imperial China.

You’ll have a difficult decision to make on Sunday, November 13th, the last night of the film festival with heavyweights showing at different cinemas across the city. The Alliance Française has partnered up with the German Film Festival to bring Alone in Berlin before it has even reached its international release date. The film, starring Emma Thompson, Daniel Brühl, Brendan Gleeson, is based on the true experiences of Otto and Elise Hampel. It is set in Berlin in 1940, when a working class couple becomes determined by the death of their son to bring down the Nazi party by anonymously writing postcards containing damning information about Hitler and his regime.

Over at Golden Village Vivo City, the festival is screening The People vs Fritz Bauer, a gripping thriller set in 1957. The film features Burghart Klaußner, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rüdiger Klink. The conflict revolves around Fritz Bauer, the Chief Public Prosecutor, looking for SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, the man who was responsible for the mass killings and deportations of European Jews. What Bauer learns over the course of the case is that he has another enemy; the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation who see Bauer’s work as having the potential to further humiliate the country.

You can find the festival’s full schedule with links to purchase tickets here.